Carver’s head snapped toward Kinney. “Are they flanking us?” he asked.
“Nah. They ain’t that smart.” The old Marine sounded less than sure of himself.
“Random or not, we’re exposed over there.” Carver took a moment to think then keyed his mic and contacted Gonzalez, who was waiting in camp with their quick reaction force. Thirty seconds later, the four-man QRF was sprinting toward the south.
“Will two fireteams be enough?” Kinney asked.
“I don’t know,” Carver replied. He looked over the field and saw Kyle a few hundred feet away.
“Kyle!” Carver shouted. “Take Shrek over to the QRF. They’re covering the southern approach.”
“Shrek!” Kyle yelled.
The Mal looked up at his master, his hair stiff on his neck and his body, quivering with adrenaline.
“Vooruit!” Carver commanded.
Shrek bolted away, quickly joining Kyle as they both ran to join Gonzalez.
“Just Kyle?” Kinney asked.
“That’ll have to be enough,” Carver said. “Besides. They’ll have Shrek.”
Everly returned his attention to the advancing horde.
He picked out several clusters where dozens had packed themselves together as they moved through the creosote bushes. He prioritized his targets and lined up on the first large group.
“Here we go,” he said, just as his engines stuttered.
He teased the controls, keeping the bird aloft. Moments later, the engines whined normally. He reacquired the cluster of creatures and sent the first of the sixteen Hellfire missiles from its rack into the middle of the advancing infected army.
The detonation whited out his screen. Moments later, the black-and-white image reconstituted. He picked out the second group and released another rocket. The AGM-114M blast fragmentation warhead erupted in the middle of a dozen of the infected. The explosion ripped the Variant bodies apart while the metal shards from the Hellfire’s warhead tore through tissue and bone. Arms, legs, and heads were ripped from the creatures’ torsos, leaving writhing mounds of infected flesh in the crater left behind. Dozens were instantly rended, but many more took their place.
Everly turned his attention to the leading edge of the Variants. He dropped down to near ground level, putting himself between the survivors and the advancing mass. He activated his 20mm rotary cannon and scanned the advancing horde. The barrel was slaved to his helmet, pointing wherever he moved his head. He picked out the left edge of the infected line and began to fire.
The three-barrel cannon began to rotate, spitting out the nearly inch-wide projectiles at an incredible rate. He had to be careful not to send too many rounds at once or he would deplete his magazine in no time. Instead, he sent small bursts into the white clusters that showed up on his heat-sensitive screen. The whiter the image, the more heat present. Multiple Variants went down with each single shot as the heavy cannon round exploded through the lead creature at over three thousand feet per second. Monsters five back were destroyed by the hail of metal death.
Everly fell into the zone. His feet, hands, and eyes fused with his flying tank, raining death onto the advancing enemy. His focus remained steadfast, and time seemed to evaporate. It wasn’t until a warning light popped up on his weapon’s display that he was shaken from his battle trance. His cannon’s ammunition was nearly depleted. He had less than a hundred rounds left out of the seven hundred he’d started with.
He checked his external pods and noted that three missiles remained. The horde had been substantial when the battle started, and many more still remained. The camp was in danger of falling.
He emptied his remaining rounds and released all the Hellfire missiles. Masses of the infected evaporated with each strike, yet still they kept coming. He surveyed the battlefield and saw that he’d thinned out the enemy, but he hadn’t stopped them.
“Red One. I did as much as I could,” Everly said. “They’re still advancing. They’ll be on you in about ten mikes.”
“That’s a hard copy, Red One. How many are left? Over.”
“Estimate six hundred in the advancing line, with a few dozen stragglers spread out behind.”
Carver grimaced. He did a quick calculation of his men and their capabilities. He had around two dozen rifles against an enemy over twenty times his strength. He did, however, have one more trick up his sleeve. A force multiplier that might well save their bacon.
Carver glanced at Kinney. The old Marine just shrugged, as if to say the obvious. It’s not like they had a choice.
“This is Red One actual,” Carver broadcast over the camp’s radio frequency. “We have less than ten minutes before the Variants arrive. Squads, switch to channel two. Battle communications on channel two only.”
Headlights flashed from behind. Carver turned and saw his up-armored pickup bouncing out of the parking lot and down the road toward the advancing horde.
“What the…” Kinney grunted as the Ford careened over potholes and washouts in the hardpacked dirt lane.
The truck skidded to a stop about half a mile down the mountain. Carver glassed the scene and smiled. It was one of the Gringleman boys picking up the survivors that the horde had been chasing.
A large group of Variants spotted the headlights and turned to chase it down. Moments later, the rescue was completed and the vehicle raced back into the camp. The Variants that had given chase never got close. Carver smiled at the young man’s presence of mind. But his grin widened as the rescue gave him an idea.
“What are you smiling about?” Kinney asked.
“That gave me an idea on how to turn this mess in our favor. I’m going to take the pickup and head down the mountain. It’ll draw off some of the Variants. That should thin out the horde and give us a better chance. I’ll double back when I reach…”
As he was explaining his plan, Kinney sat on the platform, shaking his head. When Carver finally finished, Kinney replied.
“No way. We can’t risk losing you.”
“You saw how those things reacted to the headlights,” Carver said. “It’ll give us better odds. Otherwise, I wouldn’t give us a fifty/fifty chance of making it through the attack.”
“You may be right but let me do it. We can afford to lose a crusty, old grunt. We can’t afford it if you didn’t come back.”
“We’re all important,” Carver countered. “I have the most experience dealing with these creatures. I need to be the one to do it.”
“We don’t have time to argue,” Kinney said. “The leading edge of the attack is less than a mile away. Regardless of which one of us has more experience, you have a family. I don’t. Simple as that.”
Kinney was right. With his marriage and the birth of his son, he had a second master to serve. A higher calling. If push came to shove, he’d choose to save his wife and kids over the rest of Lost Valley.
Kinney looked at Carver in mock surprise. “Wow. After all these years, I finally won an argument with you. Now I know the end times are here.”
“Yeah. There’s a first for everything. But you better move your ass back to the parking lot if you’re going to draw them off.”
Carver keyed his mic and informed the camp that Kinney would be taking the pickup.
“Good luck, buddy,” Carver said after ending the transmission.
“Hey. I’ve got the easy job. You take care of yourself.”
Both men stopped when the Ford’s headlights began careening down the mountain road.
“This is Red One actual,” Carver barked into his mic. “Who the hell is in my pickup?”
After a few moments, someone in the camp replied. “Sir. It’s Ms. Blevins.”
“What? Why didn’t you stop her?”
“Sir. We didn’t know she was going to do that.”
A squawk interrupted the conversation.
“Sir. This is Jacobs.”
Garrett Jacobs was a naval Master-at-Arms and Jennifer’s fiancé.
“Go Jacobs,
” Carver said.
“Sir. Jennifer wanted me to tell you that she knows the road better than anyone and to tell you that her rice burner would have been a better choice.”
Carver smiled. Jennifer had been notorious for driving her small imported car on the dirt camp road, which was ten miles of potholes and shifting soil that had claimed more than a few transmissions and suspensions. Jennifer used to speed down the lane with abandon, swerving the compact vehicle around the hazards rather than plowing through them. She had done this for years with not even a scratch to show for it. Both Kinney and Carver had accused her of witchcraft for her ability to navigate the journey in record time.
“Too late to do anything about that now,” Kinney noted.
Both men watched the up-armored pickup lurching away. Its headlights danced across the desert floor as it weaved back and forth on the narrow mountain road.
“That woman sure can drive,” Kinney said admirably as the Ford disappeared around a bend in the trail. The headlights continued to cast a glow in the distance, lighting up the side of the mountain. Carver was about to reply to his friend when a collective scream of rage echoed up from the distance.
“It worked,” Carver muttered. “That should be me out there. She’s all alone.”
“She’ll be fine,” Kinney remarked. “Now, let’s take out those bastards.”
Jennifer Blevins
When she heard Carver say that he was going to draw some of the Variants off with his truck, Jennifer knew she was the right person for the job.
In fact, she thought, I am the only one that can pull this off.
She’d been the camp’s director for years and had driven the ten-mile stretch in every weather condition imaginable. Dark or light. Overcast or clear. It didn’t matter. In fact, she considered foul night trips to be a personal challenge, which she attacked with great pride. The switchback turns, numerous potholes, and rain-sluiced patches were not a hazard, but an obstacle course created by mother nature. In many spots, the side of the road had collapsed, leaving just enough space for a single vehicle to pass. At those narrow places, she always chose to accelerate, rather than slow down. She found that it gave her tires more traction. Her record down the mountain was just over sixteen minutes, a time that no one had even come close to matching. That was averaging nearly forty miles an hour on a road that often required her to drift into the curves. Tonight, she planned to use that skill to help her camp survive.
The first mile down would be fine. The plateau where the camp sat gave her a somewhat level stretch. As she drove toward the drop off, she could hear Everly in his Cobra gunship, narrating the progress of the creatures that were climbing her way. Their ability to scale walls and push through the obstacles that nature had erected was stunning. The survivors had used the curving dirt road to ascend to the camp. The Variants simply went in a straight line, traversing through ravines and over cliffs at a frightening rate.
She approached the edge of the camp. The field to her left disappeared against a drop-off to a canyon that was formed by the occasional desert thunderstorm runoff. Many millennia of weather and earthquakes had shaped the mountain into a flat-topped fortress. Against a normal enemy, the plateau would be nearly invincible. But they weren’t fighting normal people. These were Variants that didn’t even notice the barriers that would stop a human.
In many ways, the infected had become the perfect hunter. If the tales of the virus being created accidentally by the Army were true, the military scientists had succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. Unfortunately, the human race also learned that creating a weapon didn’t mean it could be controlled.
Movement at the edge of light cast by the truck’s headlights caught her attention. A mass of creatures was springing up from the ravine, their glowing yellow eyes blinking on and off as they occasionally glanced her way. From a distance, it reminded her of a field of lightning bugs.
She slowed down, watching as most of the horde ignored her. Just a few dozen had turned her way. That wasn’t going to be enough to make a difference.
She tried beeping her horn, but that didn’t draw enough toward her either. She flicked the headlights, but it had little effect. She might get fifty to follow her, but many hundreds were bounding toward Lost Valley. She wasn’t going to make a difference.
She paused to remember the terrain of the land. She’d taken a 4-wheeled ATV into the field on several occasions. Carver had planted flags in the grassy mesa, and there was a ditch running through the far end of the plateau that was at least three hundred yards out. That left more than enough room for her to maneuver the pickup.
It didn’t take long for Jennifer to make her decision. She reached down and turned a knob on the steering column, switching the truck into four-wheel drive. She gunned the engine and turned left into the field. She was going to get their attention, even if it meant running over every last one of those damned infected monsters.
Everly
Frustration wasn’t even close to describing Everly’s mood. He knew that a second loadout would be enough to wipe out the advancing infected army. But there was no time to land, arm the helicopter, and re-engage the enemy. They’d be in the camp within minutes. Not enough time to get his bird back in the fight.
Everly was relegated to observer. He hovered over the plateau and used the Cobra’s infrared camera to call out the location and speed of the Variants.
He turned his camera back to the advancing main group. Hundreds were crawling over the edge. Everly was doing a quick assessment of their numbers when his screen temporarily whited out. The image reconstituted right away, revealing a truck moving through the mass of the infected, its headlights having temporarily washed away the image on his display.
He watched as the vehicle careened up the field, drawing the majority of the monsters toward it. The rising sun was still blocked by the mountain to their backs, so his IR camera held an advantage over normal light. The field was bathed in a grey darkness, but the truck cut through the tall grass, bouncing up and down on the uneven terrain. The driver was skilled, earning Everly’s respect.
The Ford turned and raced back to the road, knocking several of the Variants into the air with the welded cowcatcher that had been attached to the front grill. The driver slid into the turn and drifted into the center of the dirt road with a majority of the Variants following closely behind.
The truck accelerated past the advancing line of creatures. Several of the monsters were able to grab hold of the cage that protected the vehicle’s bed but were shaken off by the driver’s maneuvers. It sped away, going slow enough to keep the Variants’ attention but remaining far enough ahead to stay out of their reach.
Everly began to pay attention to the radio traffic on the camp’s main channel. It was Blevins driving the vehicle, and she was doing a bang-up job. She disappeared over the crest of the road with almost every Variant behind her. Within half a minute, all but a few dozen creatures had turned and fled after the Ford.
“Viper One. This is Red One actual. Sit-rep. Over.”
Everly described the situation. He flew to the edge of the plateau and watched Blevins careen down the mountain. Hundreds of Variants followed angrily at her rear.
“I’d say she peeled off over half the horde,” Everly reported.
Carver grinned. The odds of survival just got immeasurably better.
“Cobra One. Return to base for a reload.”
Hot damn! Everly thought. I’m back in the game.
Pablo Gonzalez
Lost Valley QRF
The four-man team was five hundred yards south of the main battle line when Kyle and Shrek bounded through the tall grass and joined them.
“Hey! Where do you need me?”
Gonzalez was hovering over one of his men, giving directions on his field of fire.
“Carver sent you?”
“Yeah. Both of us.”
“Well, I could use another rifle,” he said. “I’m not sure what to do w
ith the dog.”
“He’ll find a way to help,” Kyle replied. “Now, where should I set up?”
“Follow me, kid.” The diminutive Marine started walking to the rear, away from the other soldiers.
Kyle stood his ground. “I’m not taking a back seat.”
Gonzalez checked his temper. Challenging a team leader during battle never went well.
Kyle saw the anger flare in the Marine’s eyes. “I know you’re trying to protect me, putting me behind the others,” Kyle said. “If those things get past us, we’ll all die. You need to use me where I’ll do the most good.”
“Shit, kid. I wish you weren’t so damn logical.” Gonzalez pointed to a spot to the right of the others, where a swale in the land created a natural shooting position. “You’re there, and don’t start shooting until I give the word. Do you understand?”
“No shooting until you give the orders. I understand.”
Kyle settled down into the depression and aimed his rifle over the edge. Although the dip in the ground wasn’t necessary to protect him from incoming rounds, the lip gave him a rest to steady his aim.
“You’re responsible for the area from the tall pine over to that rock outcropping. Keep your focus there. Don’t worry about anywhere else unless I tell you to. Got it?”
“The pine to the outcrop. I got it.”
The distant crump of explosions to their rear caused them all to turn back toward the camp’s parking lot.
“It’s on,” Gonzalez whispered.
Shrek’s growl brought the men’s attention back to their front, where the first of the Variants crested the rise.
“Hold your fire,” Gonzalez ordered.
The little Marine sat down to Kyle’s right and crossed his legs, Indian style. He leaned forward and rested his elbows, one on each knee, then stared through his ACOG four-power optic. The mass of infected rolled out from the wadi and streamed directly at them.
“Contact left!” one of the soldiers yelled.
Extinction Survival Series | Book 4 | Warrior's Fate Page 3
